The students had filled the East Room, and I was sitting off to the side with the rest of the cast. They had already performed, so now it was open to student Q&A.

"How did you decide what to cut?" A blonde girl in the back asked.

"Ugh!!" Lin began, "it was SO hard. I had like 3 more songs, I had, um, one, Valley Forge, about how useless the American dollar was, and about everyone dying, I had, OH!" He obviously just remembered something, "The John Adams rap!" The crowd laughed a little, they had all seen that video. "And, we had, like a different song for Helpless, and one about the Whiskey Rebellion, and there's the one about Slavery!!" I laughed, I heard this one, it was in my Hamiltome, which hadn't been released publicly yet, but I made Lin, Daveed and Chris do it for me. The Sally Hemmings reference was perfection. "No, but, it's hard to cut these songs," he continued, "like you feel like they're so important and you worked so hard on each of them, and then, it's so hard to decided which goes and which stays." Lin put the mic back in his lap.

The Q&A went on for a while longer, most of the questions were trivial, but some were actually quite interesting.

"Do you think Hamilton was a bad person?" A boy in the 4th or 5th row asked.

"You know what, no." Lin shrugged, "I think he made a really major mistake, in cheating on Eliza, but he was known for being kind, he didn't charge much for his legal aid, he once sent a tip back to a customer because it was too much. All together, he was a good guy who made some mistakes, we all have. Also, he came clean about them, he didn't wait for anyone else to figure them out."

"What about Aaron Burr?!" Someone else asked, "was Aaron Burr a bad person?"

"I don't think he was." Leslie started, "I mean, like Lin said, 'he was a good guy who made some mistakes, we all have' I mean, Aaron Burr was a great husband and father, generally was known as being a nice person, he shot the hero, but he regretted it. We have all done stupid things then regretted it later. Aaron Burr was just trying to make it somewhere."

"Also," Lin interjected, "Hamilton forgave Burr." I didn't know this, "on the boat across the Hudson, Hamilton was rambling on and on and he said, about Aaron Burr, 'I forgive all that has occurred.' So, yeah, Aaron Burr wasn't a bad dude."

"How important is diversity in the casting?" A girl near the back asked.

"It's really important." Lin started, "it's important for a lot of reasons, one being that, like, look at America. Is America all white? Are the only important people white? No. I want a little Latino kid to be able to see my show and think, 'wow. This is my country.' I want everyone to feel represented in their own history, and not as the slaves, let's show these little kids that it doesn't matter whether George Washington was black, white, Latino, Asian, all that matters was what he did for our country."

The Q&A was fun, after that, they split the students up into groups for a musical theatre workshop. I went with Lin's group.

"Alright! So guys, I'm Lin-Manuel Miranda," he introduced, "how about we go around and introduce ourselves?" We were sitting in a circle on the floor. The students went around and introduced themselves, as did I. "Ok, do y'all wanna start with improv?" He addressed the students but was obviously talking to me, I was sitting beside him, he turned towards me, and smiled sarcastically. "So, as most of you probably know, the number one rule of improv is never say no, keep the conversation going, but let's say, there's someone in your cast who forgets a line. What do you do? Try to cover it up if it's important, if it's not, don't. If it's not important pretend it never happened. Abigail, do you want to help me give an example?" He asked standing up, and helping me up with him.

"I think I see where this is going but sure."

"Alright. Scenario. Um. You be you, I'll be, a random joe. And due to the occasion we're talking about, hm, Hamilton? Let's say, we're just, at the grocery store, in line." I stifled a laugh, "alright? Alright." I rolled my eyes. "Ok, so, hi!" He stepped into character, "I'm Jack! I just, I wanted to let you know, I love your crutches."

"Oh, thank you." I giggled a little, "I'm not really a fan, so, oh, and my names Abigail."

"Well it's great to meet you," he shook my hand, "to be honest, I did know who you were."

"Really?" I asked, "how?"

"Oh, I'm a huge Hamilton fan." The students all laughed.

"Oh! That's fantastic."

"So, you live with the creator and star, that must be great, he's the best!" The students laughed again, "he's just a genius, and not bad looking either." The students exploded in laughter. "yeah, well, as you can see Hamilton's pretty big in my house." He gave me a look saying, 'you know what to say.' I groaned internally.

"Yeah, it's a big deal in our house too." Lin broke character and started cry-laughing... Again...

"Ok. Sorry. That wasn't an example, I was kind of just making fun of this young lady." He put his hand in my shoulder.

"How is that making fun of her?" A student asked, I think his name was Jonah.

"Oh. She said that." He clarified, and I started laughing.

"I didn't know what to say!" I laughed

"No, Michele Obama told her that Hamilton was kind of a big deal in her family. And Abigail," he looked at me, "what did you say?" He asked.

"Yeah, it's a pretty big deal in our house too." I repeated.

"Ok, sorry, back to the workshop." He said, and started the actual workshop.

SORRY IM LATE I HAVE AN AP TEST ON FRIDAY AND IM GOING TO FAIL. IVE BEEN STUDYING!! IM SOOO SORRY!! IM REALLY TRYING HERE!!

Thanks for reading!

-Abi